Permanent Seminar on the Histories of Film Theory

Picture of Sergei Eisenstein, pioneering Soviet film director and theorist

Thanks to Michał Oleszczyk, Film Studies For Free found out about a truly fascinating, and highly promising, project: the Permanent Seminar on the Histories of Film Theory.

The Seminar is

an open network of film scholars interested in rediscovering and re-reading historical contributions and debates on film. Special attention is devoted to early writings on cinema, as well as more recent reconsiderations of film's role in the new media landscape. The Permanent Seminar is affiliated with the Film Theory in Media History book series published through the Amsterdam University Press.

The very high quality of the project is guaranteed by its coordinators -- Jane Gaines (Columbia University) and Francesco Casetti (Yale University & University of Milan) --  as well as by its scientific board: Dudley Andrew (Yale University); Chris Berry (University of London-Goldsmiths); André Gaudreault (University of Montréal); Vinzenz Hediger (University of Bochum); John McKay (Yale University); Markus Nornes (University of Michigan); David Rodowick (Harvard University); Philip Rosen (Brown University); Leonardo Quaresima (University of Udine); Maria “Masha” Salazkina (Concordia University, Montréal); and Petr Szczepanik (University of Brno).

There's not much up on the website yet as the project has just begun, but FSFF recommends that its readers take a look and then keep on going back for further film-theoretical delights of the kind linked to below.

• Sergei Eisenstein, "Forthcoming] "Unpublished “Notes for a General History of Cinema” – New York, 2010

• Francesco Orestano, "Motion Pictures and Scholastic Education" (Italy, 1914)

• Giovanni Papini, "Philosophical Observations on the Motion Picture" (Italy, 1907)

• Mario Ponzo, "Certain Psychological Observations Made During Motion Picture Screenings" (Italy, 1911)

• Emilio Scaglione, "Motion Pictures in Provincial Towns" (Italy, 1916)

• Enrico Thovez, "The Art of Celluloid" (Italy, 1908)

• Giuseppe d’Abundo, "Concerning the Effects of Film Viewing on Neurotic Individuals" (Italy, 1911)